JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli archaeologists on Tuesday announced the discovery of dozens of new fragments of the Dead Sea Scroll with a biblical text found in a desert cave and believed to be hidden during a Jewish uprising against Rome nearly 1,900 years ago.
The parchment fragments contain lines of Greek text from the books of Zechariah and Nahum and have been dated with radiocarbon dating to the 2nd century AD, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority. They are the first new parchments found in archaeological excavations in the desert south of Jerusalem in 60 years.
The new pieces are believed to belong to a set of parchment fragments found in a place known as “The Cave of Horror”, so named because of the 40 human skeletons found there during excavations in the 1960s, which also they carry a Greek interpretation of the Twelve Minors. Prophets. The cave is located in a remote canyon in the Judean desert south of Jerusalem.
The fragments are believed to have been hidden in the cave during the Bar Kochba Revolt, an armed Jewish revolt against Rome during the reign of Emperor Hadrian between 132 and 136 AD.
The artifacts were found during an Israeli Antiquities Authority operation in the Judean Desert to find scrolls and other artifacts to prevent possible looting. The authority held a press conference on Tuesday to publicize the discovery.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of Jewish texts found in the caves of the West Bank desert near Qumran between the 1940s and 1950s, date from the 3rd century BC to the 1st century AD. They include the first known copies of biblical texts and documents beliefs of a little-understood Jewish sect.